With television having matured as a creative medium in the past few decades, it has taken its rightful place among the subjects scholars study seriously. Professors are now analyzing the meaning and significance of classic shows with the care and intellectual respect traditionally accorded to literary masterpieces. But some academics still resist…

The article uses an episode from the television series "The Sopranos" to illustrate how embodied experiences of sporting practices such as high-school football involve both conscious and unconscious dynamics. It outlines how cultural practices such as masculinist sport are psychically incorporated into the body through the process of…

This chapter explains how the show "The Avengers," a popular British television program with an unusual female lead role, captured the imagination of women viewers in England from 1962 to 1964. After describing the show and then the research project investigating viewers' responses to it, this chapter explores the experience of watching…

Examined the type of local television programing offered during the prime-time access period (7:30-8:00 P.M.), the reasons behind the choices, and the special alternative offered by "PM Magazine." Discusses what these findings suggest about the limits of local programing in the current television marketplace. (PD)

Investigated local television programs that devote regular time to "soft news"--features on ordinary people, lifestyles, and the arts. Observed that these programs portray the arts and ordinary people as upbeat and interesting but, at the same time, as fragmented and having little relationship to political or economic issues. (PD)

Summarizes and integrates key findings from the most widely cited research studies which have investigated children's understanding of what is "real" on television. Discusses the developmental patterns in young viewers' use of various criteria for assessing the reality status of television programs. (Author/LRW)

Reviews the involvement of various television networks in distance learning, including public broadcasting stations, Cable in the Classroom, Arts and Entertainment Network, Black Entertainment Television, C-SPAN, CNN (Cable News Network), The Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel, Mind Extension University, The Weather Channel, National Teacher…

A student-conducted television survey caused the fifth graders to read, think introspectively about their own television viewing habits, conduct interviews, analyze the resulting data, and write about the results. (BW)

Organized in nine sections, this paper traces the development of Israeli television since 1968, the year when television was first presented to a night-time viewing public, and examines the programs preferred by the Israeli public. The paper focuses on the growth of interest in TV; television viewing and the ongoing surveys; an internal analysis…

The director of media research for the Public Broadcasting System's series on the Vietnam War discusses research aspects of the documentary, noting the similarity with master's thesis work. (PD)

Discusses programs of the New Christian Right, an evangelical group which applies pressures designed to affect censorship and to cause boycotts of products advertised on "offensive" television programs. Methods used in current censorship activities are highlighted. References are provided. (EJS)

Reports results of part of a long-range project studying cultural indicators. Suggests that television viewing is associated with a cultural "mainstream" that tends to absorb or assimilate groups that otherwise diverge from it, and that the salience of certain real-life circumstances is likely to boost television's cultivating potential. (JMF)

Provides an overall view of the present state of educational broadcasting in Greece, discusses the main reasons that hinder its development, and proposes solutions for improvement. Government control and the direct imitation of foreign broadcasting programming are cited as two main problems that need to be overcome. (Author/LRW)

Examines the complex nature of pretense as portrayed in a popular UK children's television puppet show. Argues that animality of puppets is rendered opaque as their identities as children are linguistically accomplished, leading to a piece of representational art structured by moral and behavioral dictates typical of conventional adult-child…

The current tension in the writing of histories has been between the defense of "textbook" histories--i.e., the conventional approach which focuses on great events, great individuals, and great collectivities--and progressive--i.e., populist or alternative histories which focus on ordinary people. A new form has been engineered by…